And let’s be blunt about this: Adults have the ability to make rational decisions with their lives, their money, their property. This includes adults who recognize the farce that Camping was running, the dilettantism, the failure of his predictions. Children, however, are far less capable of determining the difference between fiction and reality. And unfortunately they are the victims of this whole fiasco, more than the adults who should have known better anyway:

Christian radio broadcaster Harold Camping, 89, had predicted that the rapture would take place on May 21, 2011, at 6 p.m. based on time zones. Not many people took Camping’s claim seriously, including workers at his Family Radio. But some of his devout followers emptied their bank accounts to pay for ad campaigns warning about the day.

Among his followers on the East Coast is the family of Adrienne Martinez, 27, who decided not to attend medical school after she listened to Camping on Family Radio. Martinez and her husband, Joel, quit their jobs and moved from New York City to Orlando to spend the last supposed year they had on Earth reading the Bible, distributing tracts and spending time with their two-year-old daughter.

‘Judgment Day’ came and went on Saturday, and John Ramsey hasn’t been able to sleep.

The 25-year-old Harrison, N.J. resident had rearranged his life in recent months to devote himself to spreading a fringe California preacher’s prediction that May 21 would bring worldwide earthquakes and usher in a five-month period of misery before the world’s destruction.

His family nervously huddled in their apartment living room Saturday, holding their Bibles open, switching between CNN, Facebook and Google for news of quakes in the Pacific.On Sunday, a dejected Ramsey said he faces a “mixed bag.”He has to find a new job. So does his mother. His 19-year-old brother, who had quit high school the year prior (“It’s pointless to graduate,” the brother had said), is thinking of re-enrolling or finding employment.

His wife, Marcia Paladines, had come to accept that she might never meet her unborn baby, whom she and Ramsey had named John Moses. Now, she’s praying for a healthy birth. The child is due as early as Friday.

“Life goes on,” Ramsey said Sunday. “I get to live. I get to be a dad.”

Personally, and this is just my opinion, anyone who puts his family in this sort of predicament should never reproduce. Now his baby will be born into a state of near poverty, unless a miracle happens–but then we have to ask, does this person deserve such a favor?

“It’s not [Camping’s] fault,” said Ramsey, who added he also won’t ask for his money back. “Nobody held a gun to my head. I read the Bible. The math added up. I don’t think anybody would do something like this without meaning it.”

What about your child? Did you ever stop to think that your actions had consequences? That, if this prediction turned out to be wrong, you might not be able to provide for your family, your child? How selfish. And finally, you’re a dilettante. Reading is easy; exegesis is not so easy and requires schooling, knowledge, reasoning skills, something that Camping doesn’t seem to have. “The math added up.” Yes, and what it adds up to is a negative balance in your bank account and your failure as a parent. Next time put your trust in scholars who know better.

All of the spritual accounting was done on that day, so now every person’s fate is decided. That makes things kind of fun, because if that’s the case then everyone – christian or otherwise – can now spend the days until October 21st fornicating etc without any further penalty.

Unless, of course, God has seen in the future – something which raises serious questions about Free Will and the question of predeterminism and other such issues.